


Applied Queer Theory

by voltemand



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-08-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voltemand/pseuds/voltemand
Summary: Annie gulps. It’s like she’s been underwater for a long time and she’s almost to the surface, like if she just keeps kicking she’ll taste the air in her mouth, feel the sun beating down on her face. But does she really want to breathe, if the water has been just fine for her entire life?
Relationships: Annie Edison/Abed Nadir
Comments: 26
Kudos: 45





	Applied Queer Theory

The first time Annie sees Abida Nadir, they don’t know each other yet, and Abida is just a tall, skinny girl roaming around Greendale’s campus. She’s wearing a boy’s hoodie, some sort of misshapen grey thing, and trying to talk to a guy with distinctly crispy hair.

 _Good luck_ , Annie thinks, _you need it_. Then she changes the last part because that’s _mean_. Anyway, the other girl isn’t ugly or anything, just a little lanky, a little awkward. If anyone understands awkwardness, it’s Annie.

The guy is clearly trying to get away, but he stops, gazes into the distance, asks the girl something. Annie can’t read his lips, but she follows his line of sight. He’s looking at a woman across campus, pretty and blonde, and wearing a very cool leather jacket. She looks aloof. She looks like the sort of person that doesn’t need to try to get someone’s attention.

Annie glances at the skinny girl again, who’s standing straight, watching the man watch the woman, and decides that if they ever meet, they’re going to become friends.

\-- 

“I’m Abida,” says the girl, who up close proves to be all sharp cheekbones and a sharper nose, her black hair swaying around her face when she moves her head. “In your Spanish class. You sit in front. You have nice pens. Do you want to join our study group? We have a board-certified tutor. He sees my value.”

Annie nods, although she can’t help wondering what board certifies a Spanish tutor or what _sees my value_ is code for. “Nice to meet you. I’m Annie. Where’s the… studying?”

Abida shrugs. “Jeff—the tutor—reserved some room in the library. We’ve already started. Sorry. Probably shouldn’t have said that. Pretend I didn’t. Okay.”

She’s standing very still now, shoulders rigid. Annie looks at Abida’s hoodie. It’s not just grey after all; it has rainbow stripes, and Annie wonders vaguely if that means Abida is a lesbian—not that Annie has a problem with that. (Probably. She probably doesn’t have a problem with that. She really hopes she doesn’t have a problem with that.) “It’s fine. Is the meeting now?”

“Yeah,” and Abida’s shoulders have lost that look. “I can take you.”

Seized by something—she doesn’t know what, maybe it’s kindness or just the fact that she’s never had many female friends (never had many friends at all)—Annie takes Abida’s hand in hers. “I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” she pronounces.

“Cliché, but it works in this context,” Abida says.

They walk, and if Annie squeezes Abida’s hand a little harder than she means to, no one complains.

\--

Though Annie isn’t around for most of the drama around Abida and her dad, she still… knows that it happened. And Annie gets shitty parents, so she finds herself walking to the front of the library. It’s like she’s a bird flying south; winter’s coming; whatever she’s doing right now is from instinct, not thought. Abida’s sitting on the steps, hunched, wrapped in a sweater. She’s all folded up, compact, long limbs turned inwards. She looks like she’s hiding from something. 

“Hi,” Annie says, and she realizes that they haven’t really spoken since the first day when they swore to have a beautiful friendship in the eyes of whatever’s up there and _Casablanca_. “Are you—are you okay?”

Abida looks up, and her hair’s all messy like she’s been running her hands through it over and over again, trying to get it right, trying to get something right. Annie knows that feeling. “Yes,” Abida says and tucks her head back in between her knees.

“Sure?” Annie asks. Then, because Abida doesn’t answer, Annie puts her hand on Abida’s shoulder. No movement. 

“You aren’t them,” Annie tells Abida. Tells herself, really. “You’re better than them. You’re going to _show_ them.”

Abida’s voice emerges, muffled but still recognizably flat. “I can’t show them if they don’t look at me.” It’s a statement. No room for error.

“Well,” Annie says, “maybe that’s for the better. Maybe they aren’t worth your time.”

Abida makes a noise, a sort of raspy huff. “You’re not very good at this,” she says. “You keep changing your position.”

“Maybe you need to change yours,” Annie mumbles. “Maybe you’re stuck on something that you can’t give up. Go cold turkey.” She thinks about high school and about Adderall and about Troy. Abida’s romantic comedy conventions would dictate that Annie’s only quit sixty-seven percent of those things, but she’s inching towards one hundred, just you wait and see.

Annie extends her hand, and Abida takes it. They sit there like that for a while, fingers intertwined, the present fading into memory.

\--

Annie really wants to get into Professor Duncan’s lab. Like, she thinks she might cry if she doesn’t get in, and she knows that that’s a silly thing to cry over, but she hasn’t actually gotten into something on her own merit since—well, since rehab. 

So when Duncan says that she’s a British ten and he only requires a five-dollar bill and two friends to get the job, Annie is both relieved and disappointed. “Who wants to be in a psych experiment?” she asks everyone, cramped around a small table in the cafeteria. “For me?” she adds, trying to magnify the base googly-eye factor by at least ten percent.

“Not interested,” Jeff tells her, fingers tapping at his phone. “Duncan’s a prick.”

Abida looks at her. “How long is it?”

“I’d have to ask. But please! Do it. For me. You get paid!”

Abida tilts her head. “Tomorrow, they're showing all four _Indiana Jones_ movies at the Vista. I'm really looking forward to the first three. I bought a whip.”

Annie makes her eyes even more googly, even though she knows Abida probably won’t react to it—she isn’t a lesbian after all, clearly into both Jeff and Troy, whom she always follows around (even though Annie met her first). “Please? This is really important to me, Abida. Could you please go as my friend? My really good friend?”

This time, Abida tilts her head in the other direction. “I didn’t realize we were really good friends. It seems a little soon for the narrative—we haven’t had any proper stories together. Sure, I’ll do it.”

Though Annie is a little miffed at _it seems a little soon_ , she hugs Abida, who’s shockingly bony but whose chest is warm and—well. It’s a nice hug. Hugs in general, in _principle_ , as Professor Duncan would say, are nice. “Oh, thank you, Abida!” She realizes her head is resting on Abida’s shoulder and steps back. “Okay, I need one more person.”

Britta, who until recently was talking to some man (the only adjective Annie can conjure up for him is _large_ ), looks at her, looks at Abida, now a few feet away, and Annie has a horrible flashback to when on that first day Britta saw first their held hands, then Abida’s striped hoodie, and _assumed things_. “Women supporting women!” Britta cheers and no one joins in. “I’ll do it, Annie.” Britta starts to dance in place, and Jeff ducks away to the bathroom, muttering something about green tea. Both Pierce and Shirley follow him.

Abida crinkles her nose, and Troy lays a comforting hand on her arm. “I’ll do it too,” he says, sounding just as stupidly heroic (or heroically stupid) as he always did in high school, and Annie’s annoyed without quite knowing why. She has a feeling this is going to be one of the most trying ordeals of her life (and yeah, there’s that hyperbole again, but it’s sort of justified, you’ll see).

\--

Three hours into the experiment, Annie looks at the monitor. She realized pretty early on that she just tricked three of her friends—three of her closest friends, three of her _only_ friends, because God (or at least Shirley’s Baby Jesus) knows she doesn’t have many others—into not peeing or eating or watching Indiana Jones for hours, just for her ego and her resumé. Still, she’s kept herself from going into the room too often. You have to control the experiment.

Britta is chewing on her nails; Troy has his head in her hands. Abida’s still, tense, her posture perfect and her fingers resting on her thighs, extended a little too far. They’re the only part of her that’s moving: clasping and letting go of some make-believe object. From his hands, Troy looks up at Abida the way Annie used to want him to look at her. “What’s the experiment?” he asks, and something in Annie’s chest clenches just a little, seeing the three of them like this. Abida doesn’t answer, only shrugs. The thing in Annie’s chest is growing.

Britta, ever knowledgeable, tells Troy that ”they want to reveal your latent homosexuality. _Very_ Freudian.” She pronounces “Freud” like “fruit.” Annie rolls her eyes. Why does Britta think everyone is gay? Once again, Annie doesn’t have a problem with it (she hopes), it’s just—it’s just obnoxious, offensive. To actual gay people. You know.

All the other students are fidgeting: tapping pens and crumpling papers. “Let them have a look,” Professor Duncan tells her. He seems worn-out, and Annie thinks with a quick flash of malice _good_. 

“I will,” she tells him, but not before getting one last glimpse. Troy has put his head in Abida’s lap. Annie wants to scream.

\--

Abida is the only one left.

She’s started to tap her foot a little, not as regularly as Annie would have thought. _Beat beat. Beat beat beat. Beat._

“What the fuck.” This is from Duncan, inflection flat and furious. “What the _fuck_.”

Annie doesn't say anything. She knows it’s her fault, sort of. Turns out her self awareness is unnecessary because he starts screaming at her anyway. It’s a lot, and she sort of zones out at the end, but honestly, who would blame her? Annie’s been awake for over a day just to watch Abida—just to watch some people sit down and eventually go crazy.

“GET OUT,” Duncan screeches at all of them, and they beat a hurried retreat.

Annie goes into the waiting room. When she sees Abida there, she’s hit by a rush of anger, something hot and heady and unfamiliar bubbling up in the pit of her stomach. She hasn’t gotten to yell in _forever_ , she realizes, and if she puts a little more venom into her words than strictly necessary, well. It’s understandable. Rational, even. “Go home!”

Abida looks at her, quirks her head to the side.

Annie slams the door shut.

\--

When Annie gets home, she feels… something. Bitchy, definitely. Good, maybe. Mainly, she feels like she probably should have said something else.

Abida’s face didn’t really change—Abida’s face doesn’t do anything, most of the time. Well, that’s unfair. She’s got a range of expressions, from _content half-smile_ to _parental issues face_ (to Annie, this one is also known as _relatable face_ ) to _stressed or maybe just hungry eyes_. The last one had come up at the end when Annie yelled, Abida’s face a little too set, a little too still. Tense. A sad face, maybe.

Annie resolves to apologize, even goes over it in her head. _Dear Abida, I’m sorry I lashed out at you because you’re a robot, even though you’re not actually a robot, and because you’re hotter than me according to Troy Barnes, but also probably objectively—have you ever tried eyeliner? Anyway, I’m very sorry. Please forgive me, if you haven’t already signed this off into your hard drive. Memory. Hippocampus. Your friend, Annie Edison._

But when she gets to the study room and sees Troy practically fawning over Abida, all _tell me more about your niche interests the way Annie wanted you to ask her about Model UN for all of high school_ , some thoughts might get thrown out the metaphorical window. She stands stiffly, thinking of all the posture lessons her nana used to give her.

They finally notice her presence. Troy smiles up at her. “Hey, sorry for bailing on your psych experiment yesterday.”

By now, Annie’s nothing short of furious. These—these imbeciles! Cretins! Ninnies! (Not for nothing did Annie get a 780 on the English portion of the SAT.) “That,” she snaps, “ _was_ the experiment.”

Troy looks like this is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to him. Abida isn't phased; if anything, she seems bored, examining her nails (short, clear, smooth). “Oh, gotcha.”

Annie wants to shake her. She wants to _strangle_ her. “‘Gotcha?’ That’s all you have to say? You sat in a room for twenty-six straight hours. No food, no water. Didn’t that bother you?”

Abida blinks, blasé. She has long eyelashes, curlier than they have any right to be on a girl who barely brushes her hair in the morning. “Yeah, I was livid.”

 _Then_ be _livid!_ Annie wants to scream. _Be something. Show something._ She settles on “Then why didn’t you _leave_?”

“Because, Annie,” says Abida very calmly, “you asked me to stay and you said we were really good friends.”

If this was a chess tournament or a debate round or a Science Bowl question, Annie’s rivals would have probably said something along the lines of _ooh, snap, sucker punch, bitch_. Abida has returned to contemplating her own steepled fingers, cool as a cucumber. 

“Okay,” Annie mutters. 

She is in some _deep_ crap now.

\--

Okay, what the hell—no, this is serious, what the _fuck_ —does one get for Abida? A movie seems obvious. Maybe obvious is good? Or maybe it shows she doesn’t care enough about their friendship and just got what any chump would. Annie doesn’t know what sort of books Abida reads, and asking would give it away. Clothing would be an obvious no even if Annie wasn’t broke. Makeup feels insulting, and Abida doesn’t need that, anyway; her skin’s perfect without any aid. Annie takes a breath. She’s aware she’s overthinking this. _Supercogito_ , her friend Brenda used to mutter. (Brenda had been a Latin teacher until she had started meth. After that she hadn’t been much at all.)

Annie’s exhausted and she’s eighteen and she lives above an _adult store_ all alone. She’s got maybe eight and a half friends, a crumbling savings account, and a past-tense 3.95 GPA she can’t brag about anymore. She’s pretty sure most of her teachers are clinically insane. And right now, she can’t figure out something that should be so, so easy, all because she was a massive idiot, a massive jerk, a massive bitch. What sort of person locks up her friends so she’ll have _community college research assistant_ on her CV? An Annie sort of person, that’s who. The same sort of person who screwed up every part of high school—screwed up her scholarship, screwed up losing her virginity, screwed up any and every chance she was ever given. 

Spiraling. That’s what she’s doing. Instead of trying to help her friend, she’s being an awful person and spiraling, and now spiraling about spiraling. (About spiraling about spiraling. _Ad nauseam_ , per Brenda.)

Annie tries to fall asleep. Her dreams are full of loud voices and slender fingers and empty gift bags.

In the end, she wakes up early and takes a bus to Best Buy, figuring that if she’s already ruined the friendship, she might as well be nice about it.

Annie finds Abida at lunch. “I wanted to say sorry for yelling at you. I wanted—I wanted to say sorry for being a bad friend.”

Abida looks at her then into the bag. “Indiana Jones, cool.” There’s a little more modulation to her voice than usual—good or bad?

Annie feels like she should justify the gift. “I just got you the first three because—”

“The fourth one blows,” they chorus. Abida’s really smiling now; it’s spreading across her face and shining and her cheekbones are _really sharp_ , like, c’mon, leave a little for the rest of us. Annie feels herself beaming back, feels her face mirroring Abida’s. 

“We’re cool,” Abida tells her. “We’re cool.” And she grins again, teeth white and gleaming.

\--

Annie thinks that she should be more excited by how Troy’s near her now, a distinct possibility, bright and shining and close enough to touch. The spark was there in the experiment, but it seems to have gone out—years’ worth of yearning all turned into dust.

Troy fumbles, but sometimes he settles into his old skin, says _Hey, girl_ in the way that used to make butterflies rise in Annie’s stomach. She looks at him: smiling, heels clicking, hands on his hips. The golden boy. 

He sidles up to her. “Britta said—never mind, it doesn’t matter, but Annie, uh, would you want to go out with me? Some time?”

 _This is what you want_ , she reminds herself. In a way, Troy seems hopeful, like he’s going to prove something to himself by going on a date with Annie Adderall.

 _You had all of high school_ , Annie thinks. _I gave you so many chances. A million chances, and there I always was, so perfect for you and so right. We could have been so right together._

She shakes her head. 

Maybe she’s imagining it, but Troy looks relieved.

\--

Annie kisses Jeff at the debate because that’s how you _win_. It’s all very cool and lifeless. Lips against lips. The right amount of pressure, the right angle, she guesses, but it doesn’t seem to do anything for her. Anyway, they win, and everything’s a blur of victory and caffeine and fried food for a little while as they celebrate at the nearest McDonald’s. Britta brings her boyfriend—Van? Vin? Vaughn. He’s tall, Annie thinks, and cute, probably. She imagines kissing Vaughn. She’d probably have to close her eyes—maybe that's why Jeff hadn’t felt right.

 _I think you’re going to kiss him_ , Abida had said earlier in the day, looking up at her seriously. _They have to try out all sorts of pairings._ Annie remembers thinking _not_ all _sorts_ then feeling confused at her own thought. What had she meant? Because Annie’s pretty sure she and Troy weren’t going to happen, and Jeff had already tried it with basically every female creature with a pulse and Abida—

Well. Anyway. Annie eats a fry. Abida’s drinking a milkshake, her fingers curled loosely around the cup.

\--

Annie’s pretty sure that this is the moment when she has her big sexual awakening and starts slobbering after boys—no, _men_ —24/7. Abida had explained it to her. They had watched Youtube clips together. _Think of it as a late coming-of-age_ , Abida had said. _No pun intended._ Then she had gone off with Troy to—gallivant, or something. Whatever it is that girls do with boys they like.

But looking through the keyhole, Annie can’t help but think _that’s it?_ Honestly ( _don’t say_ honestly _, aren’t you always honest, say_ frankly, chides a suspiciously maternal voice in her head), it just looks like a big fat stick. You know. A—well, a phallus. Because that’s what it is. Just a weird medical term, something antiquated and quaint. She can’t imagine a real one.

“We-ell, what do you think?” Shirley asks her.

She doesn’t know what to say. Girls are supposed to blush when they see dicks, so Annie does.

\--

Someone in Spanish class has a crush on Abida. There’s a drawing of her in Troy’s Spanish book—sloppy technique, Abida’s nose is nowhere near that wide—and it’s surrounded by little hearts, fluttering around the face, taking flight because of Abida’s presence. It’s a little creepy. Who spends that much time thinking about someone else? 

Troy swears it isn’t him, even though Shirley harangues him for a bit on Leading People On and Lying To Your Elders, and Annie believes him. Troy’s many things (well, a middling amount of things), but dishonest isn’t one of them.

Britta’s concerned. “Abida, don’t you want to know who this man is? He could be an _animal abuser_. He could _eat people_.” 

Abida blinks. “Unlikely, given the art style. I’m sensing a romantic comedy scenario.”

“Oh, that’s _nice_ ,” beams Shirley. “Don’t you want to find him, A-bi-da?”

“Could be a lesbian,” Pierce interjects. “Could be many lesbians.” He takes a few seconds to contemplate this blissful scenario.

“ _I_ think,” Annie says—blurts, really, because she doesn’t know why she’s talking or what she’s going to say next, “I think that this guy is creepy like Britta said. I don’t think we should look for him. I think that we should study.”

Britta, Shirley, Pierce, and Troy make complaining noises. “Come _on_ ,” they chorus.

Abida looks at her. “Are you sure?”

And Abida’s—well, she’s Abida. She has a particular way of looking at you, doe-eyed, all sharp angles and soft skin, and you want the best for her. It’s probably a universal truth. Annie can’t imagine what it’s like for guys—they probably keel over.

“Well,” Annie says, “I guess it can’t hurt to try.”

\--

“No,” Shirley tells Abida, “no dinosaur noises.

“No,” Britta says a little later, “no turtlenecks.” 

“Yes!” Pierce exclaims. “Lesbians!”

While Troy’s been frittering around, trying to keep Abida from scaring off potential mates, Annie’s been pretty quiet throughout this whole ordeal. She figures her role is to make sure Abida’s comfortable. And for the most part, she has been. “You’re trying to _She’s All That_ me,” Abida had said at the beginning. It hadn’t been a question.

Britta and Shirley had fervently denied it—“no, sweetie, we think you’re perfect the way you are, it’s just—”

“Just?” Abida had asked, quirking an eyebrow. “It’s okay. I liked _She’s All That_. Everyone does. Except I don’t think any of you are going to fall in love with me.”

Now, she looks a little tired as Britta pats her down for Pez dispensers. “I _told_ you,” Britta says. “You can have at most two on you at a time. Otherwise, the guy thinks you’re trying to sell him something. I should know; when I was in New York—” 

Annie looks a little more closely. Britta’s basically got her hand on Abida’s—chest area. She’s not… cupping it, she’s just very enthusiastically conducting a routine check. For Pez dispensers. On another girl. That’s fine and normal and cool, Annie thinks. Very cool. Abida looks disinterested. Don’t want to get any untoward thoughts for your platonic female friends.

“All clear!” Britta sings. She’s still got a hand on Abida’s chest, lazily resting there as Abida makes a small, aborted motion to swat it away. 

_Only a straight girl would do that_ , Annie finds herself thinking about Britta without warning. Wait. What? Of course, a straight girl would do that. She would do that. Wouldn’t she? She thinks about her own hand. Placing it on Abida’s chest, she could do that. She could keep it there. Sure. But what if she—did more than that, accidentally, say, and—this is all very hypothetical, mind you, just, what if she put her hand under Abida’s—under a girl’s shirt and. Well. You know what happens next. Would she do that? Would a straight girl do that?

Annie gulps. It’s like she’s been underwater for a long time and she’s almost to the surface, like if she just keeps kicking she’ll taste the air in her mouth, feel the sun beating down on her face. But does she really want to breathe, if the water has been just fine for her entire life?

The rest of the day is blurry. Annie nods when she’s supposed to, agrees with Shirley, slaps Pierce’s wrist whenever he gets too lesbian-y ( _you’re one to talk_ , says some snarky voice in her brain, and oh no, this is for real, maybe Annie doesn’t need her birth control pills anymore). They never do find the boy, but maybe that wasn’t really the point.

Annie declines Troy’s offer to drive her home—she’s pretty sure he means it in a friendly way, but she needs time to think.

At home, she pictures Jeff. Solid, dependable (well, sort of dependable) Jeff, tall and scruffy and kind when he remembers to be. She remembers how it felt to kiss him, or rather, how it didn’t feel. There was no point at which she wanted to go further. There was no part of him she wanted to touch.

Then she thinks about Troy, how he seemed so wonderful in high school. A demigod, a hero. Someone she could picture herself with slaying dragons and doctors and mean teachers. But when she thinks back to her crush on Troy, she can’t find any moment when she felt like kissing him.

Now Britta. Britta has pretty curls and cool jackets and her eyes are so big, so blue. And she wears short skirts sometimes with her tall boots and Annie finds herself thinking, mortifyingly, like she’s a middle school boy, _I would hit that_. (And, okay, that’s a kick closer to the surface, it’s so near, c’mon, try to reach.) But she knows she doesn’t like Britta, knows it because—

Because. Annie doesn’t like anyone in the study group. That would be ridiculous. But if she’s being completely forthright, if she has to choose (not that there are many options, after all, it’s really just a process of elimination)… Abida’s surprising warmth and her acute angles and her enormous irises, her lithe figure, and her ruffled hair: these are all things Annie’s slowly realizing she finds attractive. Fine, she’s attracted to Abida. So what? (So tell her, but that’s not happening, not in a million years.)

Annie thinks that she’s floating now, breathing real air.

\--

Now: the dance. You know, the dance that’s a word that Annie can’t say anymore because of _reasons_ , offensive reasons. She’s read a ton. Mainly lesbian stuff: _Dykes To Watch Out For_ , _Stone Butch Blues_ , _The Price of Salt_. She thinks that of all of them she likes _DTWOF_ the best, especially Toni, who’s pretty and kind and always seems to be right. (Annie’s slightly unnerved by Mo, and she can’t bear Clarice’s cautious, workaholic personality.)

But she’s getting off-track. The point is, there’s a dance. It’s happening right now, in fact. There are a lot of pretty couples waltzing around, twirling like there’s no tomorrow. Annie’s pretty sure Jeff and Britta’s boyfriend (curse him, what’s his _name_ ) are fighting, and Britta may have joined in. Annie doesn’t really want to know.

There’s an exercise she’s been doing a lot lately—glance at everyone in a room, and decide whether or not she’s attracted to each one. Annie knows this is superficial, probably sexist (or at least sexist according to Britta), and definitely skeevy. But it helps, sort of. 

She can’t deny that when she gazes at the men, she’s hoping for a flash of something—a beacon of attraction, a flashing light. Something to say “no, you’re just confused, the past few weeks were just a fluke. Come back to me, come back to us.”

She can’t find Abida or Troy in the crowd. Weird.

Annie looks surreptitiously at the women nominated to be Transfer Queens with their glowing skin and shining eyes and red mouths and yeah, for a select few, she still wants more than a glimpse. She still wants in general. Wanting, Annie has learned, is the worst—it guarantees nothing but makes you imagine everything.

So, lesbianism continues. It persists. Annie says that quietly to herself, pats down her hair, takes a breath. Nothing stops. She repeats her words, a little less quietly. Shirley gives her a strange look.

 _Shit._ Annie needs to tell someone about this. _Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit._

So, of course, because she has to do something, say something, be something, and she’s brave, she really is, Annie runs outside to the quad. It’s cool for May, crisp and a little windy. It’s dark, too, and she’s glad—her cheeks must be flushed. She feels red, exposed, raw. Weird. _The witching hour_ , she thinks, except it isn’t at all—far too early, far too soon.

She’s just about caught her breath when she sees Troy approaching her. “Hi,” he says. “I think we need to talk.”

And this is the perfect opportunity, really, to say it. Come on, Annie, what do you have to lose, just blurt it out and—

“I’m gay.”

Annie’s sure she didn’t hear that right, wasn’t she about to say that, did he read her mind or something, what the hell, what the _fuck_ , oh my Lord and the words come out (a pun, maybe not Abida-worthy but adequate, come on, get to the punch and the meat and the substance): “ _I’m_ gay.”

Troy looks at her in—horror? delight? confusion? It must be the last one because he asks “What?”

“I said I’m gay. I must have said it twice, except the first time it was like you said it,” and oh my goodness gracious, it’s dawning on her. Annie’s always prided herself on having a quick uptake, but maybe she should take that off her LinkedIn skills because Troy is shaking his head vigorously, a lovable canine sort of motion.

“We’re both gay,” Troy mutters. He seems to like the sound of this because he raises his voice and flaps his arms, like his wings are taking off from this chaotic sort of happiness. “WE’RE BOTH GAY!”

Annie’s suddenly very glad that they’re friends, that they both ended up at the same shitty high school and the same shitty community college. She’s glad that they’ve both grown up enough to dance around on the quad, that they’re both brave enough to let other people see them.

“How did you figure out?” she asks him.

Troy looks shifty—literally, he wiggles his shoulders. “It’s a long story.”

“Okay,” Annie says, a little annoyed at his evasion, “but I want to hear it.”

He shuffles. “Promise you won’t get mad?”

“Troy, it’s your self-discovery story. Why would I be mad?”

“So, you know how my dad is kicking me out?” He sees Annie’s horrified expression and clarifies “NO, not for the gay thing. Uh, I’m getting to that. I wanted to move in with Abida because we’re best friends, and best friends live together. Right?” Annie nods. “Okay, so I was pitching the idea to her—said it just like that, pitching, so she’d know I meant it. I said, ‘Abida, we should live together.’” He pauses, swallows. Annie thinks that she should be watching the line of his throat, should be wanting him, but as it is, she holds her breath for the punchline. “And she said no.”

Annie‘s still holding her breath. Abida declining Troy’s offer is surprising, yeah, but it doesn’t explain why Troy’s coming out. He sees that she’s waiting, and resumes speaking. “I asked her why. She hesitated, and then—and then she kissed me. It was nice, I guess. But I couldn’t kiss her back.” Troy’s speaking faster now, a little frantic, like he’s trying to fast-forward through the scary part of a movie. “I couldn’t. And I had this big cookie—uh, I forgot to tell you earlier, but I had this huge cookie from the Transfer Dance—and all I could think about was my cookie, and how Abida isn’t a cookie, not sweet or something I want to have in my mouth, she’s just my friend. How I love her, but I don’t love her the right way.”

Annie thinks about how she looks to every man in a room, trying to find a spark. She gets what Troy is saying. “So what did you tell her?”

Troy’s making the weirdest little smile, sad and small. Annie doesn’t think she’s ever seen him looking like this before. “What I just told you. I said sorry that she kissed me, and it wasn’t her fault, even though she did it. And she said that I was probably gay, in a sort of choked up voice, like she was going to cry. We hugged. I gave her the rest of my cookie. She said that she was proud of me, or something.” His eyes are growing shiny. “And then I walked off to find you because you’re my friend too. Because friends should know what each other really are. Like Alfred and Batman.”

Annie hugs him. “Gayest ever Alfred and Batman.”

“Yeah,” Troy mutters, and she can feel his tears getting her shoulder wet. “Gayest ever Alfred and Batman.”

\--

Annie calls Abida up a few days into the vacation. “Hey, let’s have a girls’ day.”

Abida shows up at the mall in flannel and a Star Trek tee; Annie’s wearing her favorite sundress. She notices absently that Abida’s got a haircut when she spots her from behind, the nape of Abida’s neck golden-brown in the summer sun. “I think we should talk,” she says. Abida stiffens. “If this is about Troy,” (her shoulders seem to widen, forming a protective stance) “he told me that he told you. I know you used to like him. I’m sorry for kissing him.”

“It’s not about Troy,” Annie tells her. “It’s about me.”

And she explains her spring-revelation to Abida, conveniently leaving out the whole boob-touching part and, you know, all of the stuff related to Abida herself. “So,” Annie finishes, “I really don’t mind you kissing Troy. I’m sorry about how it all turned out.”

“Me too,” Abida admits with a wry smile, and okay, Annie sees this; Abida’s casting herself as a heroine who thought she was in a romcom but is really just part of a sitcom ensemble. “And,” Abida adds, “congratulations.” She takes Annie’s thumb, then her whole hand, pats it, runs her fingers down the knuckles. A reassurance. “You’re very brave.”

 _And your eyes are very brown_ , Annie thinks but doesn’t say. Yeah, this still isn’t a crush, but Abida’s got enough on her plate without a lesbian accidentally coming on to her. “Let’s get some froyo,” she says instead.

Abida grins. “I thought you’d never ask.”

\--

After that, the coming-out scenes punctuate the summer, a slow trickle of Annie opening herself up to her friends.

Pierce, surprisingly, is very supportive—he claps her on the back. “I’ve never had a daughter,” he tells her. “But you’ve come awfully close.” They watch the TV with Troy after that—something about cowboy pornstars—and Pierce asks her which ones are the prettiest. (Troy protests that this is an exclusionary conversation.)

She texts Jeff because she hasn’t seen him since the Transfer Dance, but according to word-of-mouth, both he and Britta are in dire straits, and he responds “Ok awesome have you seen the rest of the study group btw watch a league of their own 4 premium lesbian content.” 

When she calls Britta, the phone almost rings all the way to voicemail until Britta picks up and they have a long and heartfelt discussion about acronyms and also Jeff. (Annie thinks that her own issues are _nothing_ compared to theirs. Like, get a (properly sanitized and decorated) room, guys.)

She and Troy decide to come out to Shirley together. The fan whirs and Annie can hear Elijah and Jordan playing baseball in the backyard with some neighborhood kids. “Ann-ie and Troy, are you sure?” asks Shirley.

And here’s the thing: Annie is not sure. She can never be, because the truth is, she’ll never have a full sample of all seven billion people on Earth to peruse. Maybe, Annie thinks, her soulmate is out there, and he’s a man. Maybe she’s been faking this all to herself. Maybe she just needs to meet the right guy, settle down, do everything correctly, have two point five kids and a white picket fence. But right now, she can’t deal in maybes. This is her chance to be herself, for the first time in what seems like and might just be forever. “Yes,” she lies. “I’m sure.”

Shirley looks at her. “Annie,” Shirley says, her voice quiet and constrained like she’s keeping herself from roaring, “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.”

“It’s okay, Shirley. I won’t let it.” Annie tells her.

A baseball comes flying through the open window, and Troy catches it, throws it back. All the kids smile back at him. Shirley sighs. “Well, you two look hot. Want some lemonade?”

After that, it’s easy. They drink lemonade and play ball with the children (Annie doesn’t want to be stereotypical, but she really should try out for softball, _what_ an extracurricular) until the sun goes down.

**Author's Note:**

> Yell with me on Tumblr at [withatalentforsquaddrill](https://withatalentforsquaddrill.tumblr.com) (for general bullshit) or [foresme](https://foresme.tumblr.com) (for fandom bullshit).


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